


White Noise

by filia_noctis



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 03:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2717099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filia_noctis/pseuds/filia_noctis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ralph alone in active service. Post-canon. Probably in a radio bunker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Noise

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Valentine's Day Challenge; posted a... trifle later.

He would return tired, the white noise hammering his temples, still. He would pacify the landlady grumbling about the nurse; still. He would drag himself up the dingy stairwell, still. He would discover Jacques in a soiled bunk already (and the nurse barely relieved!). He would flinch at the stench, still. He would clean Jacques and change sheets. Still. He would eat without tasting the tepid food, and clear Jacques’ plates and scrub the urinal and help Luke pray Jacques to sleep, still. He would, among newer white noises, hear them mutter ‘Mon père!’ between snores, still.

Then he would sit at a rickety desk under a noisy fan and wipe the beads of sweat breathing down his bare, bare neck and take his night’s worth of conversation out on a sheet of paper. He had fallen for the words he’d say to Laurie when he had fallen for him. He was never sure why they kept falling back for him , still. Laurie would have started writing too.

It was midnight. It was another fourteenth. It was two very brave, very beautiful men loping around the moors with their black and white steads-- their eyes lost far off, their chariot wheels broken.

The stench stank less.


End file.
